América Writing, (EFE).- More than a million Spaniards residing in American countries such as Argentina, the United States, Cuba and Mexico are called to vote in the general elections on Sunday in Spain, however, the registration of the vote abroad in the diplomatic headquarters indicates a low participation despite the suppression of the “vote” rogado.
According to data from the National Institute of Statistics, as of January of this year, the country with the most Spaniards registered abroad in the American continent is Argentina, with 477,465; followed by the United States, with 192,766; Cuba, with 160,833, and Mexico, with 155,543. They are closely followed by Brazil and Venezuela, with just over 136,000 registered Spaniards.
The vote in Argentina
Argentina is the country in the world where the largest Spanish community resides abroad. According to data published on January 1, 2023 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, of the 2.8 million residents abroad, 477,465 do so in the South American nation, almost 200,000 more than France, second on the list.
Of these, 304,385 make up his electoral census -closed on March 1-, the consul general in Argentina, Fernando García Casas, explains to EFE, who does not hesitate to describe participation in the 2023 general elections as a “historic record” compared to previous elections, due, in his opinion, to the elimination of the “vote requested”.
“I would say that the possibility of voting whoever they want is closer to the citizenship,” explains the diplomat, who details that for 57 hours between July 15 and 20, Spaniards registered at the Consulate General in Argentina were able to exercise their right to vote in person.
For the first time in Argentina, the ballot box voting process was carried out at the Embassy “so as not to interrupt the work of the Consulate, which is attended by an average of 1,100 people a day”, a number that has grown in recent months, as a result of the entry into force, at the end of 2022, of the Law of Democratic Memory, known as the ‘law of grandchildren’.
García Casas explained that his team received “very positive feelings on social networks” for the deployment made for the vote, since, he said, voters took “an average of 22 seconds” to cast their ballots.
According to data from the Spanish embassy in Buenos Aires, there have been 18,920 votes cast in Argentina (including those cast at the ballot box and those registered by mail) and will be transferred this Sunday, under Federal Police escort, to the Ministro Pistarini International Airport, in Ezeiza (Buenos Aires province), from where they will travel by plane to Spain.
Low participation in Cuba
In Cuba, one of the countries with the largest number of Spanish citizens registered in the CERA registry, the general elections have gone more than unnoticed, judging by the numbers offered by the Spanish Consulate in Havana to EFE.
Of the nearly 152,000 people registered and with the right to vote, only 1,200 voted (less than 0.8%) during the six days, from Saturday to Thursday, that the voting center remained operational in the Cuban capital.
In addition, voting by mail has barely arrived. According to estimates by the Consulate, barely 5% of Spanish citizens on the island have received the first postal shipment.
In these figures, the fact that only the Havana Consulate operates in Cuba, when less than 30% of the Spaniards (43,000) in the country live in the capital, may have affected. The transport situation is currently critical on the island due to the lack of fuel, the state of the car park and inflation.
It is also relevant that 99% of those enrolled in the CERA are Hispanic-Cubans, mostly descendants of Spaniards who have been naturalized in recent years for economic or sentimental reasons and for whom national politics may be distant.
The ballot box in Brazil and Venezuela
Spaniards registered in Brazil, which has the eighth largest community in the world, were able to vote at consulates in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre and Salvador, and at the Embassy in Brasília, as well as at temporary offices set up in a handful of smaller cities.
The vote at the Sao Paulo consulate, whose demarcation includes more than half of the 136,000 Spaniards registered in Brazil and the states of Paraná and Mato Grosso do Sul, took place without incident, although there were crowds at times, with waits of up to an hour, the consul general, Miguel Gómez de Aranda, told EFE.
The Embassy has not disclosed participation data, but Gómez de Aranda pointed out that the turnout in Sao Paulo was “much higher” than that of the last general elections.
In the demarcation of Sao Paulo, with a census of just over 79,000, the majority of voters are descendants of immigrants who arrived in the South American country several generations ago and only a minority, around 15,000, were born in Spain, according to consular data.
In Venezuela, 8,831 Spaniards voted to elect president in the general elections on Sunday, representing a 7.48% participation, in one of the countries that hosts the most emigrants from the European nation, with an electoral roll of 117,913 people entitled to vote for these elections.
Of the total votes, 8,583 were deposited in person, while 248 people voted by mail until this Friday, when the external vote was definitively closed.
Although there were voters from all the autonomous communities of Spain, they were the Canary Islands, with 3,778 voters; Galicia, with 2,042, and Madrid, with 1,679, the regions that led the participation list since the migrant vote was opened.
At the close of this article, the participation data in Mexico and the United States had not been provided by their diplomatic missions.